For the longest time, Halloween was my favorite holiday.
But then I got cats. And not just any cats, but cats who are terrified of other people. And noise. So a day where people are coming to the door screaming TRICK-OR-TREAT is pretty much their nightmare scenario. To Jake and Jenny, it's the scariest day of the year for realsies.
And it's no picnic for me, I gotta say.
My home has the living room in the back, kitchen and dining room at the front. So every time somebody comes to the door, I have to go running across my house to get there. I usually deep-clean my kitchen on Halloween because of this, but this year it wasn't in me after the rough day I had.
Fortunately, my home is covered by a full array of security cameras, so I just have the camera at my front door running on my televison so I can see people coming before they knock or ring.
But that doesn't save me from having to run to the door fifty times.
Though I should welcome the excersise given that I bought too much candy again this year and will have to eat it myself, darnit.
I honestly don't have a problem with what other people believe. Unless what they believe persecutes or intrudes on others, in which case I have a very big problem with it.
But anyway... Halloween.
With each passing year I see more and more people going apeshit over Halloween. They think it's evil. They think it's "Satan's Holiday" (or the day Satan impregnates his bride, which is like a holiday, I guess). Which is fine. Like I said, people can believe whatever they want to believe. But when you try to shut down Halloween activities that other people want to enjoy? Fuck you. Fuck you sideways. You don't get to use your faith to dictate how other people live their lives. People who, by-and-large, aren't "celebrating Satan" but simply dressing up in costumes and having fun.
But if all you're doing is telling other people what you're into then have at it. You do you. I 1000% support this guy...
On the plus side, he managed to spell all the words correctly ON HIS HALLOWEEN COSTUME! Refreshing!
But tell me honestly... do Christians cease to exist if they stop performing for people who absolutely do not care? (kudos to his adorable kid for taking Satan's Holiday seriously and dressing up as a bear disguised as a human though).
Then there's the other end of the spectrum. I happened across a woman named "Sam" who is a Catholic convert and had this to say about Halloween: "Repeat after me: HALLOWEEN IS A CATHOLIC HOLIDAY. Stop letting secular America steal what’s ours and turn it into everything it’s not."
Stop letting America steal what's ours?!? Wow. CLEARLY this woman is blissfully ignorant of Catholic Church history! Because, yikes. That's quite a take.
BUT THEN... you keep reading and, yep, she's selling something...
Now, so far as designs go, this one is actually darn good.
"I created these pieces as a way for you to promote the faith, decorate your homes, and maybe spark a conversation or two!"
Well, I was born into the Catholic faith. So I could just as easily say "Stop stealing what is ours to make a buck off of our fatih." But whatever. I am astutely aware of Catholic Church history, so this is actually very on-brand. And besides, I haven't been Catholic since I got evicted from Intermediate Sunday School for daring to ask "Where can I find purgatory in the Bible?" (probably just as well... the Primary Sunday School teacher liked to pretend he had a tail and invite us to chase after him and grab it... and by "it" I mean "his ass," so who knows what would have happened at the Intermediate level).
Meanwhile, back to Catholic Halloween...
"All Saints Day," as it is celebrated by Catholics, is about as far from "The Devil's Holiday" as you can get. I found this being shared on Facebook...
What's funny is that a comment on where this was posted had somebody ask if the guy in the bottom-right corner was Pokemon Trainer "Ash" from the video games.
And, while that's not the case, it's actually not as far off as you might think! That is not Ash... that's Carlo Acutis, who was beautified by The Church three years ago in 2020 (which means he's well on his way to being canonized as a saint)...
Carlo was actually a fairly interesting guy... a computer geek who loved video games and creating websites for The Church (his most famous being a site devoted to cataloging "Eucharistic miracles" that went live mere days before his death at age 15 in 2006). Odds are he will end up being a new Patron Saint of the Internet, which is a slightly more suitable choice than St. Isidore of Seville, who was assigned that glory by my favorite Pope... John Paul II.
As you would expect of somebody of his status, Carlo was entombed, then opened for public display, in Assisi (where he wanted to be buried since Saint Francis of Assisi was one of his most favorite saints)...
I have always been fascinated by Catholic Saints, even though The Church is a long ways behind me. It probably has to do with the many, many Catholic churches I've visited in my travels. They are always adorned with visages and artifacts from the Saints. Plus I love the movie Millions which buys strongly into Saint mythology.
I remember when Carlo's tomb was opened for veneration, there was a huge buzz across the internet that he was found to be "incorrupt." Which is to say that his body hadn't decayed like a normal person would. But, in fact, that wasn't the case. They had reconstructed his face out of silicone so that people visiting his tomb could see him as he was in life.
Which is not to say that he's all there for the viewing.
Only his undertaker knows for sure how much of him is actually there.
As with what happens to those in line for sainthood (or canonized into sainthood), they removed all kinds of parts and pieces to distribute them to churches as "first class holy relics." "First Class" being a piece of them. "Second Class" being something they owned. And "Third Class" being something they touched (dead or alive, I think). Holy Relics are a Very Big Deal in the Catholic Church. It was reported that Carlo's heart ended up in New York, which shocked me to my very core. I figured a finger bone or a piece of flesh... maybe... but his heart? That's like the top tier kind of relic! Alas, it wasn't his whole heart, it was a small fragment of his pericardium from his heart. Kinda. I mean the pericardial sack is just the membrane they cut through to get to the actual heart... but still pretty impressive.
He's going to be a saint one day, after all...
I know that Carlo's mom presented some of the relics to where they would be enshrined. And I sincerely hope it's because she wanted to instead of her being convinced to do so against her will. I'd think that going on a world tour with the blessing of The Church to hand out pieces of your son would be highly traumatic to a mother... but a Catholic mother? They be wired different (apparently she was raised in Rome but didn't consider herself to be Catholic until her son converted her, but still).
So, yeah, I hope everybody had a fun Halloween. Or, if you think it's absolute evil, I hope you had fun condeming Halloween.
You do you.
This is classic. Just look at the look on that cat's face.
Happy Halloween y'all.
UPDATE: Yikes. I bought 70 pieces of candy. I ate two. I had eight left. Which means I had 60 kids. Last year I think I had only around 45?
Booo. BOOOOOOO! I wanted more candy!
Oh boy.
Here is the photo...
Long time Blogography readers might recognize this as a still from a video I made fifteen years ago for a video edition of "Bullet Sunday"...
But anyway...
I've started increasingly commenting on posts that are racist, bigoted, antisemitic, hateful, or stupid. The reaction is mostly what you'd expect. And I'm used to the hate... this is not my first time on the internet. But now the comments are all about my profile pic, not my comment. I have been called absolutely every name you can imagine. Because I'm wearing black makeup. For Halloween.
This is weird to me because I don't think much about my appearance (which should be obvious to anybody who meets me). The idea of having perfectly matching clothes or dressing in the latest style or looking "cool" or whatever just doesn't interest me. Except when it comes to Halloween, apparently.
I'm fascinated how people don't bother to make an actual argument about what I've said now. They don't like what I'm saying and how I look in my profile pic, but it's how I look that's what they choose to comment on. Which just reinforces the fact that ignorant assholes are ultimately bullies above everything else. Hating people for how they look or how they choose to dress is their priority.
I am trying to be unshocked, but this is not remotely surprising. It's the easiest shot to take, because forming an argument in support of your opinion is hard. And the easy shot is all they know.
Not that I really care. Goth Dave is the hottest Dave.
Everybody do the hokey-pokey and turn yourselves around... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Lasso Unwound! The fact that the writers of Ted Lasso are taking a beloved character from the first season and turning them into a literal villain is an interesting turn. The penultimate episode that played out on Friday makes this fairly irrevocable, and there's no real way of getting out of it. Couple that with the fact that Dr. Fieldstone is leaving the show (God please don't let it be permanently!) and I am very interested in seeing how next week's finale is going to play out...
Before all the awards and accolades, it was said that Ted Lasso was going to be a trilogy of seasons. But now that Apple has a very, very good reason to keep the show running, I am fairly certain that a fourth season is highly likely. But whether or not that will include Jason Sudeikis as Ted remains to be seen.
• NO CRYING! I wish I knew whom to credit this photo to, because it is absolutely epic. Easily one of the best Halloween costumes I've ever seen...
Adorable. Adorable. Adorable.
• Poorly Animated! As a massively huge fan of Reza Farazmand's comic strip Poorly Drawn Lines (which he graciously contributed to Thrice Fiction)), I was happy to hear that it was becoming an animated series. And now it's here...
You can watch it on FX and stream it on Hulu right here.
• Trash TV! Paramount+ is fucking garbage. Can't play the content I'm paying for, and their tech support doesn't give a shit. Tells you to jump through hoops that never work. Has you disable stuff that no other streaming service requires. Then blames you or your hardware when none of their "suggestions" work. When will these fucking dumbasses learn that whenever they treat their customers like shit, it just encourages them to find other ways of watching the content they want to see. I have many streaming services... and NOT ONE OF THEM fails consistently like Paramount+. Not Amazon Prime, not Netflix, not Philo, not YouTube TV, not Hulu, not Apple TV+, not Peacock, not HBO Max, not Sundance, not Discovery+, not Hallmark Now, not Disney+, not Showtime... NONE of them fail like piece of shit Paramount+. And yet it's MY fault. Right. Okay. Cool. Well, at least I'm not alone...
If it weren't for the new Star Trek shows, I wouldn't give a fuck about Paramount+... the only show I watch on CBS is Magnum PI, and I always buy that off of iTunes so I can watch the episodes multiple times.
• PASSWORD?! This bullshit right here...
It is so fucking infuriating how sites set their requirements. Most of the things which they claim protect your security actually do exactly the opposite. Making passwords impossible to remember. Making passwords expire. All kinds of idiotic shit which keeps you from getting where you need to go. And password managers only scratch the surface, because sometimes it's the SITE that's fucked up. I've had many a site tell me that I have my password wrong EVEN THOUGH IT'S SAVED IN A MANAGER, and then when I have to reset it, I'm told that I can't use my previous password? Fuck you.
• NEWSFLASH: Photographer, social media star Matt Mathews: Opossum taken by the state was his ‘baby’. Animals are not seen as living creatures by our laws. They are seen as disposable assets unworthy of consideration. And usually it comes down to some stupid-ass bullshit about "God providing animals for man's use..." (or abuse, as the case may be). But if you took ten minutes to actually read the Bible, you'd find that it dictates that animals are indeed worthy of kindness and care. God rejoices in ALL that he created. How in the hell do you think that this somehow excludes animals? This is just more of the typical "pick-and-choose theology" that plagues us. And our government.
• HA! Apples response to the EU wanting to dictate a
That's what it's all about...
Boo?
I headed home from work in daylight hours so I could put out Dead Jake and Dead Jenny, convert my HUE lighting to spooky purple and green, dump my candies in a bowl, then leafblower all the leafs in the front of my home so they won't blow in my house every time I open the door...
Rather than running to the front door and back to my living room all night long, I just stay in the kitchen and deep-clean everything while trick-or-treaters are coming. Which is a far, far better way of spending my evening than two years ago when I was doing a clean-out for my colonoscopy on Halloween. What a massive mistake THAT was. Trying to spend the entire night on a toilet while running to the door to pass out candy? Total nightmare.
And speaking of nightmares, Halloween is truly the scariest night of the year... for my poor cats. I have tried everything to get them used to people, but they just aren't having it. So having dozens of people ringing the doorbell and screaming "TRICK-OR-TREAT!" all night long is not their idea of a good time. Usually I feed them at 5:00 so they can hide before trick-or-treaters arrive, but this year kids were showing up before 5:00. Well, whatever. Maybe they are afraid of the dark or afraid of other kids and this is how they have to enjoy Halloween. But it sure would have been nice to be able to make a sandwich for dinner before people start arriving expecting a candy hand-out.
Alas, Trick-or-Treating is not the same as it was when I was young. Back then hundreds of kids would canvas the entire city and make a massive candy haul. And now? I get around 50 kids maximum. I guess it's too big an effort for too little reward? Maybe it's time better spent playing video games. And kids today have it easy thanks to global warming. Back in my day it snowed for a couple of my Halloweens!
I shouldn't complain though. More candy for me!
Plus... I've got a really clean kitchen now.
Since I'm not really supposed to have candy (I save all my allowable carbs for bread and pasta), I try to buy my candy for Halloween as close to the date as possible. This year I didn't do a very good job, having purchased it two-and-a-half weeks ago. Even worse, I picked an assortment with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in it, which is a lethal guarantee that I'll be digging into the bag almost immediately.
So when I opened it one hour after getting home from the store two-and-a-half weeks ago, I was dismayed to find that the candy I purchased wasn't "Fun-Size" like it normally is... it was more like "Bite-Sized." Today I went back to the store to get something more acceptable only to find that it's ALL "Bite-Sized" now. If they still make "Fun-Size" my store sure didn't have it. Oh well. I guess everybody showing up at my house will be getting two pieces.
Not two pieces of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, of course. Those are long-since gone.
Pussy be expensive, yo.
Today I got a call-back from Jake's doctor telling me that there was a small amount of bacteria in his urine. So small that it could have easily come from the dye that they put on the urine slide so they can see stuff. The full laboratory testing is three days away, but the doc said he recommends going with a new regime of antibiotics plus a bladder relaxer plus a pain-killer plus an anti-inflammatory medication so that he's not suffering unnecessarily. I agreed, because it's been two weeks and the poor guy is still peeing ten times a day. And the fact that he is always sleeping on me might be an indication he's in pain or upset.
So off I went to pick up Jake's drugs.
Now, I fully admit that I was radically unprepared for the sticker shock that came from my cat's medications. When added to yesterday's vet visit and labs, we're past $500 now ($2,500 total since his initial visit four weeks ago). Some of that I'll get back in insurance reimbursement. But still... wow. I'm poor.
But the cost is not even the real pain here.
One of the pills has to be dumped out of a gel cap, dissolved in water, then shot into your cat's mouth with a syringe. This is the same stuff Jake was on when he came back from his procedure and it's fine. Jake doesn't like it, but he's chill enough that I got this. Kinda stupid they don't just sell it in liquid form, but whatevs.
I asked if it was the same routine with the other pills.
Of course it's not.
The pills taste awful, so you have to coax your cat into swallowing them. Something tells me that Jake will most definitely not be as chill as this cat...
They gave me a pen, but said it just makes things harder for some people...
And so... I'll give it a go. A part of me wanted to ask if I could give him the pills rectally since that's probably going to be easier than in his mouth, but I resisted. Somebody appearing to be anxious to shove pills up a cat's ass would probably have their cat taken away from them.
The final medication is a liquid. Oh happy day.
Or so I thought.
I asked if I could just drip it on Jake's food... but, alas, that was met with a resounding "no." Apparently it's even worse tasting stuff, so you really have to shoot that into their mouths so you can be sure they won't turn their nose up at it.
Some questions...
And... on top of all that... it's Halloween!
Last year I made the stupid, stupid mistake of scheduling a colonoscopy on November 1st so I had to pass out candy while undergoing my clean-out prep. Good Lord was that the scariest Halloween I've ever had.
Though this year was not without incident. Every Halloween I deep clean my kitchen while passing out candy. In the middle of it all, a plate slid off of a pile of other dishes and shattered into a billion pieces. Ironically, this is the Corelle stuff I bought for my mom to eat off of because, in her confusion, she ended up breaking a lot of dishes. It's supposed to be super-tough, but just look at this (please ignore the cat hair I managed to find)...
It took me a 45 minutes to clean up the breakage because shards of glass went everywhere. All the way from the kitchen though the dining room and into the living room! Such is the peril of having an "open concept" home! But I wanted to be sure I did a good job because I didn't want my cats getting hurt. I can't afford any more vet bills.
UPDATE: I figured since the liquid antibiotics tasted horrible, I would try being smart about Jake's pills. First I forced him to swallow the antibiotics... THEN I dropped his pill in some crunchy food. Since his mouth was already full of awful, maybe he wouldn't notice the bitter pill? AND IT WORKED! Totally chomped down that pill! Thank heavens. I am so grateful that I didn't have to shove that down his throat too.
It's Halloween again!
This past week when I was at Home Depot, all their decorations and spooky stuff was on sale for 50% off, which wasn't tempting to me (what a waste of money!)... until I saw two cat skeletons for $9 each. Now that I'm interested in.
Jake and Jenny? Well... not so much. They sniffed around for ten seconds, then went on with their busy lives...
Hopefully my trick-or-treaters will be more intrigued with Dead Jake and Dead Jenny than the live versions were...
And don't forget my awesome wreath addition...
Now that decorating is done, all that's left to do is pass out the candy...
Guess we'll see how many trick-or-treaters I get this year. Last year it didn't top 60.
I pulled my Halloween wreath out of storage tonight only to find it had gotten crushed when a box of books ended up on it somehow.
Buying nice wreaths in-season requires more money than I have spare cash to purchase, so I decided to upgrade my "Fall wreath" with a $3.50 addition. I rather like it...
My quick trip over the mountains revealed that winter is indeed here. More snow than last week to be sure...
So long as the snow stays in the mountains for a while, I'll be okay. I am absolutely not ready to have it start snowing here at home.
And... time to unpack.
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